Care Homes in Plymouth

If you imagine a well organised modern institutional care unit where the staff place pride in their smart uniform, rules being clearly printed on the wall, where routine is paramount and everything is so tidy you thought you were in a hotel - you have just imagined the opposite to Wisteria House. We Are Different.

We are a traditional home with furnishings familiar to an elderly person that include lots of stimulating and memorable items spread around the lounges. We like Wisteria to be treated like a home not a health care unit.

The staff team do not wear uniforms as we like to come across as a friend who is there to assist you and not to just put on a uniform which says ‘I know best’.

‘How can you make a meaningful connection and build on a genuine friendship if one person is wearing a uniform?’

We are a small independent home, we are not governed by large corporations policies and procedures, therefore allowing the staff team to be incredibly flexible in the choices that we offer, from how you would like your bedroom furnished to keeping the food pantry open 24 hours a day for drinks and snacks.

Feelings Matter Most

At Wisteria House we believe that as a person’s dementia progresses and their cognition (ability to make decisions) deteriorate, they go from being thinking beings to ‘feeling’ beings. Most of their decisions and communications are based around their present feelings and their sense of reality. In the home we try hard to ‘jump into their bubble’, their world, and connect with their present feelings, interpret their words or communications, regardless of how irrational these may seem to us. No one would choose to have anxiety, stress and fear or live in a chaotic world so we try hard to create a home and offer care which is calming and makes sense.

No Barriers To ‘Them and Us’

Where possible the staff team have removed, or at least reduced all barriers to ‘them and us’, the staff share all cutlery, crockery, mugs, toilets and eat the same meals at the same time in the same room. We do not wear uniforms or have a staff rest room, routines are kept to a minimum and we have no labelling language. The people living in the home are welcome to go into the kitchen (except when hot food is being served or transferred), and some of the staff team even wear shoes that look like slippers.

Everybody here is equal and we feel this is their home and needs to be treated as such.